Sand Cake

Sand Cake

　　Sand Cake is a unique pastry snack from Changjiangpu. The best-known maker of Sand Cake is Yu Liangou. When he makes it, you can clearly see the flaky layers inside after breaking it apart—there can be as many as five or six layers. While others use lard to make Sand Cake, he uses sesame oil. Moreover, he pays special attention to the wind direction when kneading the dough. He gets up at midnight every day to start kneading the dough, always observing the wind direction. If it’s a southern wind, he adds less water to make the dough drier; if it’s a northern wind, he adds more water to make the dough moister, because a southern wind brings moisture while a northern wind dries it out. After kneading the dough, he spreads a layer of sesame oil on it, folds it, and kneads it again. He repeats this process five or six times. Once the dough is ready, it is set aside for later use. Sand Cake is usually cooked in a barrel-shaped stove, whose top resembles a “chicken coop hearth,” making it convenient to place pots. Next to the stove is a two-tiered wooden rack, which is handy for handling tools and ingredients. The cooking process goes like this: clean pebbles (less than an inch in diameter) are placed in an iron pot and preheated. Cooking oil is added from time to time to stir the pebbles. When the pebbles in the pot become very hot, half of them are scooped out and set aside in a backup pot. Then the hot pebbles in the main pot are leveled out with a spatula, and a square dough pancake (about one foot across) is placed on top. The reserved hot pebbles are then spread over the pancake. The heat from the pebbles above and below bakes the pancake to perfection.

　　Yu Liangou is very particular about making Sand Cake. After baking each cake, he wipes the pebbles in the pot with a clean cloth and uses more oil for frying the stones. As a result, his Sand Cakes are in high demand and always sell out quickly. They have become a unique specialty of Changjiangpu, renowned far and wide, and the tradition continues to this day.